


We can't choose our fate (but we can choose others)

by EverydaySanePsycho



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternative Ending to 3.07, Angst, Can't say the same for everyone else though, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Keep Calm Lexa doesn't die, Major Character Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sky People shouldn't play with guns, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7905940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverydaySanePsycho/pseuds/EverydaySanePsycho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has an expiry date.<br/>That was a medical fact.<br/>She had always known hers.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>In a last ditch attempt for peace and to keep Clarke in Polis Lexa has requested Pike send someone to speak terms. Pike has another plan – to kill the Commander.  Neither plan works out the way they were supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We can't choose our fate (but we can choose others)

**Author's Note:**

> Some context: Titus is not an idiot so therefore does not try and shoot Clarke/kill his Commander (although he’s still a bit of an ass). Murphy has not been captured and is instead loving life with Emori. The City of Light was just those solar panels, Jaha has went abit crazy but there is no Alie. Clarke and Lexa have said their goodbyes (wink, wink) and Clarke is leaving. Clarke is planning to meet Octavia and Indra in the throne room not at the gate. 
> 
> Hope everyone enjoys.

The irony of it all was practically mocking her Clarke thought as every breath caused a throbbing pain to tear through her body. Since the day her father had been arrested and floated for treason she had known that her own life would end on her 18th birthday. Despite the regulations on the Ark, despite what her mother had said, there would be no review, no last minute reprieve, at least not for her. Chancellor Jaha was not willing to go public with the system failures and if he was prepared to float the man he had once called his best friend then she was more than sure he could and would float her too.

 

She had accepted it, embraced it even. She had come to terms with the fact that her world would never be bigger than the metal coffin she was currently locked up in. She had made her peace with the fact that her dream of the ground would always be just that – a dream. She had in time stopped being haunted by all the things she would never get to do, the places she would never get to see, the people she would never get to meet. She would never get to keep her promise to her father of saving their people and despite how the cliché of the thought made her want to itch; she would never get to fall in love, she would never get to see if love really did make everything worth it.

 

Then the council had sent her and 99 other delinquents to the Ground and regardless of the fact that they were being treated like lab rats she could also see it for what it was - a second chance. Amid all the pain and death and war and blood, there was hope. It was faint, a tiny spark and sometimes Clarke swore she could feel it snuff out inside her but even on her darkest days she could never convince herself to truly give up. In the face of the guilt and disgust she felt with herself over Mount Weather, she still cleaned her wounds and hunted for food, she didn’t want to die.

 

She wanted to dream again, like the dreams she had once had of the ground.

 

She wanted to do more than survive.

 

She wanted to live.

 

She wanted to feel like she deserved to.

 

When Roan had first brought her to the Commander, hands bound, gag in mouth and forced to her knees in front of the woman who had left her and her people to die, her fury had been a palpable energy in the room. She had been filthy and drained and as fragile as she had ever been and when Lexa had uttered those fateful words ‘ _I need you_ ’, whatever had been left of her frail psyche had snapped. More beast than woman she had raged against her captors, against her.

 

But in her presence she had also healed. Slowly and so very, very painfully, she had healed. She was changed of course; she doubted her father or Wells would recognise the person she had become. The young carefree girl who had once drew pictures of what she thought the ground would look like had lost much and was long gone.

 

Nevertheless with Lexa’s unwavering belief in her, she had started to put the shattered pieces of her heart and soul back together. And while she would never be whole again, while there were pieces of her lost - perhaps forever, she was no longer broken. Damaged and bent, sure but not broken.

 

It was here, in Polis, when night fell and the stars came out that Clarke was finally granted the peace and security to stand on her balcony and look out over the ground she never thought she’d see, simply just to gaze in wonder. It was in Polis that she was able to help her people and secure their safety as the 13th clan. And it was in Polis that she found the love she wasn’t truly sure she deserved.

 

Which was why the irony of the situation she found herself in wasn’t lost on her. She was sure that the universe was mocking her and even she had to admit that it was almost funny – in a sick, twisted, dark way of course - that today of all days she would find herself lying in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood. Although as she gazed up into panicked green eyes filled with unshed tears she thought that maybe it wasn’t funny at all, maybe after everything it was just heart-breakingly tragic.

 

“FISA NAU!”

 

“She was shot – “

 

“I’m - I’m sorry. I-I-I- “

 

“Sha Heda.”

 

“- she needs a doctor. She needs Abby.”

 

“Heda?”

 

“-didn’t mean to. It wasn’t her. I wasn’t aiming at her.”

 

“SHUT UP! Haven’t you done enough, brother?”

 

“Em Pleni! Guards have Abby kom Skaikru escorted here immediately.”

 

“Clarke? Tell me she’s okay, please, tell me she’s okay.”

 

“Sha Heda.”

 

“Klark.”

 

“Is she.....?”

 

The voices swirled around her, fading in and out. She struggled to focus on them, to understand exactly what was going on. Images, thoughts and feelings flickered through her mind in short bursts, jarring and incomplete, like an old record that kept skipping.

 

_Lexa._

 

_Too much blood... They needed to stop the bleeding._

 

_Lexa was shot at._

 

_Why did she feel so unbearably cold?_

 

_Lexa was okay, right?_

 

_And yet her blood felt like it was boiling in her veins._

 

_Bellamy?_

 

_Was this what dying felt like?_

 

_Lexa. Lexa. Lexa._

 

Shock she absently registered, she was going into shock.

 

“What do I do? Tell me what to do.”

 

Her thoughts were fuddled and confused but she could hear more clearly now. Why wasn’t anyone answering the Commander? Realising that her eyes were closed – _when did she close them?_ \- She pried them back open once more to be greeted by searching green. It was then that she recognized that the question had been directed to her.

 

“ _Wou-Wound - press-pressure on the wound.”_

 

Her words came out choked and she could feel the blood gathering in the back of her throat as if to drown her. Looking down slightly she could see dark crimson steadily dripping down her torso and onto the floor of the Commanders throne room. She vaguely wondered how many other people had bled out on this floor - lots most likely. Although she doubted that any of them had the Heda on her knees beside them, their head cradled in her lap, her hands trying desperately to keep their blood in their body.

 

“I’ve sent guards with Octavia to meet your mother. Don’t you dare give up Klark. Yu gonplei nou ste odon.”

 

Lexa’s words were a low growl full of authority, as if she could simply command it and it would be so and others in the room nodded in agreement with their Heda. Was it only Clarke that could hear the tightness in her voice, the tinge of worry and fear that laced her words?

 

“I’m not.”

 

Her words were pained and whispered, only heard by the distressed brunette hovering over her. Clarke could feel tears welling in the corner of her eyes and she tried urgently to blink them away – she was so tired of crying. She had to be strong, for her people, for Lexa. Only her blood had stopped boiling now and all that she was left with was the cold – she was so very, very cold. Icy trails seeping into her skin and leaving her more worn out than she had ever been before. She wasn’t sure she could be strong for much longer.

 

There was a flurry of motion as one of Polis’s most proficient healers was led in. He was immediately by her side, grabbing at vials and rags, anything that could help. The truth was though he was out of his depth. This was a bullet wound, one in which the bullet was still lodged inside her somewhere and his expertise was arrows and knives and disease. He didn’t know what to do and Clarke could see it in his eyes, in the hesitation of his hands, afraid to touch her lest he do more damage.

 

“It’s – It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

 

He stared at her then, a mix of awe and respect and sorrow.

 

“I’m sorry Wanheda.”

 

“SAVE HER!”

 

The command was loud and harsh and the man shrunk back from the sheer force in the words, lowering his head in shame at being unable to serve his Heda.

 

“For-forgive me Heda I-“

 

The poor man stumbled over his words in his anxiety and the blonde felt deeply sorry for him. She was a healer too, or at least she used to be before the scales had tipped it so she had taken more lives than she could ever hope to save, so she knew what it was like to be faced with a wound you couldn’t heal, a person you couldn’t save.

 

“I will have your head if – “

 

“Stop... it’s not his fault. I’ve –I’ve been shot. There’s nothing he can do.”

 

Clarke reached up ignoring the pain that flared over her body and rested her hand on Lexa’s jaw, cupping her face. She knew she probably shouldn’t, they were in the throne room after all, surrounded by the Commander’s people and her own but Lexa’s features were a picture of pure rage, like some sort of avenging angel and she didn’t want this healer to die because of her, that couldn’t be the last thing she was responsible for.

 

“Lex, please.”

 

The brunette looked down at her then, leaning further into her touch, her bloody hand coming up to wrap round Clarke’s wrist, her thumb rubbing gently over her rapidly beating pulse.

 

“Ste kamp raun ai Klark.” _Stay with me Clarke_.

 

And there weren’t words to express how much Clarke wanted to do just that. To reassure the girl that held whatever was left of her heart that she would never leave. That she would stay by her side for as long as she wanted her to, that wild horses couldn’t drag her away. Hadn’t that been the saying in the old world? But to do so would be giving foolish hope at best and be a cruel lie at worst because wild horses had come in the form of a single bullet fired by a boy she had once trusted more than anyone is this world and not even Wanheda was immune to the very thing people believed she lorded over.

 

But she could try, for Lexa she would try. No one would say that she went easily.

 

“I’m losing too much blood. Slow- we need – need to slow it down.”

 

The healer dived into his bag at once, glad at being given direction. He pulled out a glass vial filled with a yellowy fluid similar to the one Clarke had once given Finn. Back when Earth was only just beginning to show the horror that lived beneath the wonder of crystal blue lakes, fresh air and glowing fauna, back when she had been the Skai Princess and not the Commander of Death.

 

“It’s bitter but will help slow the blood down and has herbs that will prevent your wound going bad.”

 

Clarke didn’t have the heart to tell him that it didn’t really matter; she wouldn’t live long enough to get an infection, the pain was gone, she no longer hurt and she knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign. So she simply allowed him to tilt her head back slightly and pour the foul liquid down her throat. He was right it was incredibly bitter, like acid sliding down her windpipe. She choked on it slightly and as she coughed blood trickled out the side of her mouth.

 

Another bad sign.

 

Before the healer could grab a rag to clean her up Lexa’s hand had already moved and using the sleeve of her top gently swiped away the blood. The move was so tender, so loving, that Clarke felt her heart constrict in a way that had nothing to do with the bullet in her chest and everything to do with the beautiful women that she had only really found and was now going to lose. This time she couldn’t stop the single tear that made its way down her cheek.

 

There was so much she wanted to say but just like earlier when she had gone to Lexa’s room to say goodbye she couldn’t find the words. _It wasn’t fair!_ They were supposed to have more time. They were supposed to have a someday.

 

_“Maybe someday you and I will owe nothing more to our people.”_

 

Those hadn’t been the words Clarke wanted to say and she hadn’t really believed them even as they had fallen from her lips. She knew Lexa didn’t believe them either, had seen it in her eyes - they had always communicated better through looks than they ever had with words – but she had played along.

 

_“I hope so.”_

 

They had both been through too much, had lost too much, had sacrificed too much to really put any stock in hope or the future or even the promise of a tomorrow. As Leaders their duty was to their respective people and there was no place for _‘Not yets’_ and _‘Maybe Someday’s’_ but with each other they had never been just leaders and as they stood - once again on opposite sides - with war fast approaching they couldn’t help shutting the world away and pretending for just a moment that a day would come when they could _just be_.

 

They had kissed then. Or rather Clarke had kissed Lexa. Suddenly unable to imagine going any longer without feeling the older girls lips on hers once again.

 

It had been different than the first time, it was still soft, still tender, still gently laced with lust and desire but there was a weight to it that their first kiss didn’t have. Looking back at it later, while her fingers idly traced designs over the brunettes shoulder the blonde decided the difference was in the taste of the kiss. It tasted like everything they held in their hearts but were still too afraid to say out loud for fear that the world would break it. It tasted like forgiveness and acceptance, like trust and want and need and something an awful lot like love.

 

How then had it all gone so wrong?

**Author's Note:**

> So that was my first time writing Clarke and Lexa so I Hope it wasn't completely terrible :)  
> I don't have a beta so any and all mistakes are mine. I read through it loads but after a while it started to blur so there are prob mistakes in there. Also I'm from Ireland so the spelling of some words will be in British English rather than American. Sorry about that.  
> Please let me know what you guys think. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.


End file.
